Department Of The Argument I Didn’t Win.
This memory flashback is courtesy of the latest episode of the Clear + Vivid podcast, featuring guest Canadian psychologist and author Steven Pinker:
“Steven Pinker: When You Know That I Know That You Know…
It then becomes ‘common knowledge,’ and can be both beneficial – like cementing friendships or empowering peaceful protests – or destructive, causing a run on toilet paper or splitting society into silos, each with their own common knowledge.”
Dateline: one afternoon in the late 1970s; UC Davis, during moiself’s…junior or senior year?; in most likely an upper-level sociology class (my pre-law major, criminal justice, was offered through the department of sociology). It was a smaller ( ~ 20-30 students ) class; we were discussing a certain chapter of one of the class’s assigned textbooks.
The discussion began with the professor expressing his distaste regarding the phrases common knowledge and common sense, which the textbook author had used several times in the chapters. Professor professed that he found those phrases assumptive and reductive: he asserted that there were no such things, and that if common sense and common knowledge truly existed then everyone would have them, and we would not have the scornful descriptors describing their lack; e.g.:
* “You think what? Oh, c’mon; it’s common knowledge that…”
* “What an idiot – he has no common sense…”
Everyone else in the class nodded and uh-huh-ed their assents with the professor’s observation. But his argument struck me as…insufficient. I had to disagree, and offered the following, with the intention of encouraging further discussion:
The definition of the adjective common does not mean mandatory, or ever-present. Something can be common, as in widespread, but that doesn’t mean that *everyone* *everywhere* possesses this “common” thing, or trait. [1]
Now it was moiself’s turn to be the recipient of my classmates’ nods and good point uh-hus…which quickly dissipated as it became obvious that the professor had become somewhat irritated. He had meant to drop what he’d considered to be a brillante déduction, and then move on.
And so, the discussion…moved on, if you know what I mean.
* * *
Department Of Good Advice To Remember
The way you walk the path is just as important as where it leads.
( Anonymous [2] )
True, that. Especially if you work for The Ministry of Silly Walks.
* * *
Department Of Previews
RROTB (Regular Readers Of This Blog ®) may surmise that Clear + Vivid is one of my favorite podcasts. But two mentions in one post is, moiself thinks, a new record.
A couple of weeks ago C+V host Alan Alda and the show’s producer had the show’s season premier, wherein they discussed/played excerpts from the upcoming season’s episodes. Here was one of my favorite previews, [3], from Alda’s conversation with science and writer and climate researcher Kate Marvel, whose new book is titled, Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet ( my emphases ):
C+V host Alan Alda:
“…You take a really unusual approach to communication in this book, Kate. When scientists write about science, they almost always avoid emotion every way they can. But you built your book on nine emotions, and under each emotion you tell the powerful stories that led you to have those emotions. It’s so unusual. How did you come to think of doing it that way?
Kate Marvel:
“Yeah, I resisted having emotions for a very long time because I’m a scientist, right? And we’re supposed to be neutral, we’re supposed to be objective…. Just the facts. And that’s how we maintain our credibility by pretending we feel nothing, but that doesn’t make us more believable. That makes us liars. And I realized that I don’t wanna lie.
And I don’t actually…there’s no gulf between getting the facts right and telling good stories about the facts. There’s no conflict between knowing things and feeling things.
And when that clicked for me, that’s when the idea for the book came in.”
Alda:
“Kate Marvel’s opening chapter is on Wonder. Wonder at the power of science to explain why the world is warming. After that she turns to anger.”
Marvel:
“…anger was the easiest chapter for me to write. And you know, I’m angry for the same reason that most people are angry when you think about climate change – the lack of action and the telling of lies….
One of the things that makes me the most angry is the weaponization of uncertainty. Hmm. The fact that they say, ‘Oh, we don’t know everything” as an excuse to not do anything. And of course we don’t know everything. That’s why I still have a job. That’s why I go to work every day.
If science knew everything, science would be over. And so the fact that there are still things to find out about this planet does not mean that we know nothing. We are sure that greenhouse gases are causing climate change. We’re more sure about that than we are that smoking causes cancer. And the fact that there are still things that we don’t know about the planet, there’s still things we don’t know about how climate change will progress, what it will mean – that absolutely doesn’t mean that we’re not sure that climate change is real. It’s us, it’s happening, it’s dangerous. “
This sounds like a job for Science Captain Marvel.
Later in the conversation with the same scientist I heard one of the best metaphors (IMO) for our ultimately deadliest [4] planetary problem. This could be helpful to y’all – which includes moiself – the next time we’re discussing the topic with a person whose comments indicate that they don’t understand the difference between weather and climate.
Alda:
“I wanted to ask Kate about the difference between climate and weather. Years ago I noticed it wasn’t accurate to say that a weather event was an example of climate change because they seemed to be two different realms. But now I see weather events referred to as examples of climate change. So I asked Kate if she could explain that to me.”
Marvel:
“The way that I like to think about weather and climate is you can think of weather as a play that happens every day, but climate is the stage. And so weather is happening against this backdrop that’s set by the climate. And when you change the stage, you change the things that can happen on that stage. You change the stories that can be told, and that’s what’s happening now.
There is no weather that is happening, that’s not happening, against the backdrop of a changed climate. And we know from kind of basic physics what happens when the earth gets warmer…”
* * *
Department Of Oh And By The Way….
It irritates moiself when I hear people say “climate change” when they should be saying, “global warming.” And that’s because I remember that there was a concerted effort, over twenty years ago, by conservative Republicans to change the vocabulary in an effort to change hearts and minds.
What conservative spinmeisters/climate change deniers want you to think:
“Climate change, that’s just the way of things – change is normal…
we’ve had lots of changes over the earth’s history….”
The fact that a more neutral term ( climate change) has become the go-to phrase, replacing the true, more descriptive phrase of *what is actually happening* (global warming – our climate is warming, not cooling ) – is a deliberate, obfuscatory, head-in-the-sand or-up-the-butt tactic.
“In 2002, a memo was written by Frank Luntz for the Republican Party on how to address environmental issues (Luntz, 2002). Luntz suggested that Republicans should update their terminology when discussing the environment, by describing themselves as conservationists, rather than preservationists or environmentalists….
Secondly, he suggested Republicans use the term climate change instead of global warming, as the latter was deemed less controllable, more catastrophic, and more emotionally challenging. It was suggested that these simple changes in terminology would assist the Republicans in winning the environmental debate. “ [5]
( excerpt, ” ‘Global warming’ versus ‘climate change’ “: A replication on the association between political self-identification, question wording, and environmental beliefs,” from ITAL Science Direct: Journal of Environmental Psychology, V. 69, June 2020 )
* * *
Department Of The Question Moiself [6]
Thinks I Know The Answer To
Which is humanity’s biggest roadblock to progress in fixing our current problems:
opposition (to the solutions), or indifference?
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [7]
* * *
May you personally avoid (and enlighten others who, knowingly or naïvely use)
the weaponization of uncertainty;
May you remember that the fact that we don’t know everything
doesn’t mean that we know nothing;
May you feel free to insert a silly walk as you walk your path;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Obviously not moiself’s verbatim recollection of what I said.
[2] From a recent guided meditation, so I’m thinking some Buddhist-type anonymous.
[3] which I share here in hopes of enticing some of y’all to tune in to Clear + Vivid.
[4] For humans. Cockroaches will carry on just fine.
[5] Why aren’t there more footnotes in this post?
[6] unfortunately
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
